Oldie but a Goody

"An Affair to Remember" starring Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant.

I am watching it on Fox Classics as I write this and thinking about my friend Lady Lynn, who loves this movie.

I saw it for the first time about a year ago, when she loaned me her copy of it on dvd.

I'm looking forward, very much, to Christmas Eve, when I will be watching another movie that I love, and at the same time my oldest daughter Vegan Chickie will be watching it on the Sunny Coast. It's called "Love Actually"and it's our tradition to watch it together, no matter where we are in the world. I begin looking forward to seeing it for the whole week before Christmas.

Here's another movie that you might find amusing ...

Lizard getting a belly rub

I find it very weird, but at the same time very cute.

And now as I type through my tears "An Affair to Remember" has come to a close and it's time for me to sleep.

Nite all 

Try it!

How good does this look!?

Raw Chocolate Almond Fudge Cake

Chocolate Crust Ingredients:
1 cup pecans
5 dates, pitted
2 tbsp. raw cacao powder or carob with chocolate extract to taste

Chocolate Almond Fudge Cake Filling Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups of cashews
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup raw liquid sweetener of choice
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1/4 tsp. Himalayan sea salt
1 cup raw cacao powder or 1 cup carob powder with chocolate extract to taste

Chocolate Crust Instructions:
In a food processor, combine all crust ingredients and pulse until sticky.
Press into the bottom of spring form pan.

Chocolate Almond Fudge Cake Filling Instructions:

Put all ingredients into high-speed blender and blend until smooth and creamy.
Save one cup of filling and set aside.
Pour rest of filling into spring form pan and spread evenly.
Place in the freezer for 1 hour.
After one hour, pour 1 cup of filling into piping bag and pipe over frozen cake in preferred design.
Return to freezer for 3 more hours or until serving.

I stole this recipe from Healthy Holistic Living and I'm going to try it tomorrow. 

There have been more storms tonight, but they've been pretty mild and now it's raining, which is nice, especially for the vegetable garden. The corn and the asparagus are thriving on all the rain from the last couple of weeks.

The chickens have been laying again .. Murphy's Law because I bought a dozen organic eggs AND a dozen free range from the supermarket. Maybe the threat that I made about them becoming our Christmas dinner did the trick!!

I finally mailed all of the Christmas gifts today. I sent them regular post and in total, they cost over $62! If I'd posted them 'express', it would have been almost double that amount. Perhaps I need to get my family to live a bit closer so that I can hand deliver instead!

After we went to all the trouble of putting up the outside Christmas lights, we keep forgetting to turn them on. Luckily some of them are solar lights, so they twinkle and glow all on their own, but the lights that frame the house, the santa and the tree need to be turned on. By the time we get into the habit, Christmas will be over and it'll be time to pack them away again!

I've yawned at least six times while writing this, so I think it's time to go to bed.

Nite all.

They're coming!

The storms are on their way.

But tomorrow will apparently be worse.

Today has been hot and humid and oppressive, so it's inevitable that storms will build at the end of the day, it's just a matter of where!

We currently have storms coming from the West and other weather coming from the East, which scares me a little, but that's probably the PTSD kicking in.

It's going to be an interesting evening. This is 30 minutes later than the last pic.

I'm off to make sure everything is fully charged, ready for a possible blackout.

I'm not feeling comfortable about this .. but then, am I ever?

I have another movie for you to watch, which again, will change the way you look at food and all the diet rules that you've been taught. This one goes for 40 minutes Diet, Health and the Wisdom of Crowds.

Nite all.

It's Over

I usually try to avoid religion and politics in here, but it's been a terrible day of tragedy in Sydney.

The media have filled the day with tripe, attempting to incite anger and fear by directing blame where it shouldn't go.

I just want to say this ...

Stop linking the Sydney siege to Islam. The perpetrator was not a Jihadist, but a criminal described by his own lawyer as "damaged goods". He was plainly not a terrorist, but a mentally disturbed individual and serial sex offender. He couldn't even get his props right: the black flag that he forced his hostages to hold can be bought for $2 in any discount store found in the capital cities. It didn't represent any extremist group.

What should come out of this is that we need to look at how we manage people with mental health issues and also take a serious look at our justice system, which unbelievably allowed this criminal to walk free.

The overwhelming sadness that I (and most of Australia) feel for the families of the two victims Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson is so heavy and oppressive that it's difficult to focus on anything else. We can only imagine the depth of their grief and the horror that they have been through.

Not to mention the survivors who will suffer, probably forever, with the memories of their hell on earth experience.

Those of us who are not connected personally with any of these people feel overwhelming relief that our own friends and family were spared, but at the same time suffer a nagging guilt for having those feelings.

We all wish we could turn back the clock, prevent this terrible tragedy from happening and make it all disappear.

All I wish is for everybody to show love and kindness to each other, stop the hatred and anger and open your loving arms. There is more love and goodness in the world than you will ever imagine and that's what we should be focussing on.

My plan is to turn off the news and current affairs and to stop reading the 'comments' on the internet.

To my friends and family .. I love you and I'm so happy to have you in my life. I'm grateful that you are safe and well and I hope that love and peace is enveloping you and your loved ones as you read this.

Nite all.

Must Watch

I've just finished watching this one hour long movie called 'Cereal Killers' where a man experimented with his own health by changing his diet to include very high fats in high quantities and removing sugar and wheat.

He was by no means overweight .. in fact, I thought he looked quite frail to be experimenting like this.

His cholesterol was high and concerning for the doctors monitoring him during this experiment.

He also had a lot of people telling him that this was too extreme and unhealthy.

The results were that everything about his health improved. He lost weight. He gained strength and energy. His cholesterol improved and his blood pressure became perfect.

This movie is being shown for free on Pete Evans's Paleoway website for the next couple of days.

I urge you to watch it. I have friends out there with both cholesterol and weight problems .. this will change the way you view your eating habits and the food rules that have been pushed on us for years.

Here is the link, but remember, it's only available for a couple of days so MAKE the time to watch it!!  Cereal Killers When you get to the website, scroll down to the bottom to find the movie.

Hopefully, I have posted this early enough that you will get to see it before it's taken off the site.

So I will waste no more of your time here .. go to the movie .. now!!

Nite all.

Memories

I discovered today that our new neighbours are Country & Western music fans, so I posted this fact on facebook, hoping to receive some sympathetic comments from friends and family.

Much to my shock, horror and disappointment, the majority of the comments I received were supporting my neighbours!! Ugh!!

However, the comment triggered a lot of discussion which then took us on a stroll down memory lane to my parents and their love of Charlie Pride and Nana Mouskouri and even Dad's crush on a gospel singer by the name of Evie Tornquist ...

Cousins, from my Dad's side of the family and an Aunty who was once married to my Dad's brother came into the discussion and shared memories from 40+ years ago.  At the end, my Aunty thanked me for starting the discussion and welcoming all comments and she said that she loved sharing memories with the younger generations of the family.

I must say that I count on her to share memories now, because I don't have my Mum and Dad to ask anymore.

Also, my brother shared a memory from our childhood. We lived in a caravan park in Sunnybank back in the late 60s and early 70s. It was called Seven Trees Caravan Park and there was a massive mulberry tree growing near the laundry/shower block and he and I used to climb that tree every day, especially when it was fruiting.

We stained our clothes, our hands and our feet with mulberry juice and often got into trouble for it.

Apparently, (and this is the bit that I don't remember) there was a slow gas leak coming from the laundry block which made my brother and I very sick because we spent so much time in the tree, unknowingly breathing in the gas.

Interesting.

I do know that I've always wanted a mulberry tree, so Adoring Husband and I planted one in our back yard when we moved here and it's growing beautifully. Unfortunately, the birds love the mulberries as much as I do and I'm lucky to get a couple of handfuls of mulberries each season!

Speaking of fruit, our garden has been a little more productive than usual. We have our first avocado on Chicklet's tree that we planted 3 years ago. We have our first pomegranate on the tree we planted 2 yrs ago. Our lemon trees are fruiting for the first time and actually looking healthy, so I'm glad that we persisted when they were looking decidedly ill in the past couple of years. We have a beautiful crop of mangos on our tree at the back fence. Our grape vine has produced grapes for the first time in 6 years. There was a massive crop of peaches, but between the birds and the grubs, I only got to eat about four of them.

After the storms over the past week and with about 5 inches of rain, the asparagus is suddenly flourishing and I picked about a dozen thick spears today and there are many more poking their heads through the dirt!

The corn has taken a battering with the strong winds pushing them over and every time they find their way back to the vertical position, we get another storm to knock them back down! Even so, they still look lush and green and healthy.

I think that's about it for the food, except for our herbs and chillies which are also doing very well.

I've had a spot of luck tonight on Foxtel TV. The second part of the Hunger Games movie is showing, so I'm watching it to help connect all the missing links from the third part of the series that we watched at the cinema last week!

Adoring Husband is out with the SES helping direct traffic and safe parking for the Carols by Candlelight just out of town.

I got a few hours of Chemistry study done today, which wasn't the slightest bit fun. Formulae and calculations to determine percentages and energy requirements for my sized body. Just to mention some of what I had to figure out.  At least I completed two more lessons in my plan, so I achieved something!

I also got to watch the end of the Australian PGA golf championship, where Adam Scott and Greg Chalmers played off seven holes to determine the winner. Greg Chalmers was victorious.

I even did some washing today and the best bit of all, was that I didn't get out of bed til 10am!! Adoring Husband accidentally woke me at 8am when he brought in my coffee and then I sat up in bed with my ipad for two long leisurely hours.

What a blissful way to start a Sunday!

Nite all.